Safety outsourced under bill blessed by FDA, devicemakers | Bloomberg
Consumer groups are up in arms about the level of collaboration between the Food and Drug Administration and devicemakers in the drafting of the 21st Century Cures Act. The bill, which recently disclosed memos show was drafted with regular meetings between the agency and devicemaker lobbying organization AdvaMed, would allow subcontractors certified by the FDA but paid for by the manufacturer to review product safety.
Patients fear spike in price of old drugs | New York Times
A small, family-run pharmaceutical company in N.J. has for years been giving away an old drug unapproved by the FDA that treats a rare muscular disorder. Now another company, which has acquired rights to a slightly modified version of the drug in use in Europe, has applied for orphan-drug approval in the U.S., sparking fears that it will follow current trends and set sky-high prices if it succeeds.
Michigan Medicaid system hits the cloud | Lansing (Mich.) State Journal
Michigan and Illinois partnered on a software system to enroll providers in the states' Medicaid programs in 2013, and now they've gone a step further and moved the system to the cloud, allowing the states to share infrastructure upgrades while maintaining separate records.
Nursing home workers share explicit photos of residents on snapchat | ProPublica
A ProPublica investigation found that in the last three years there have been dozens of cases of nursing home workers taking photos or videos of residents in explicit or humiliating situations and sharing them on social media. It's a violation of patient rights and privacy, but it can also serve as evidence of the mistreatment.
Why an Uber for health care is doomed to fail | KevinMD
Dr. Jay Parkinson, founder of Sherpaa, a healthcare consultancy for businesses, says that if his early foray into house calls on demand is any indication, startups touting themselves as the Ubers of medicine will--and should--fail.